some notes to make sense of the pics I posted. And take away some paradigms to heed.
https://img.aspr.gr/images/2018/07/24/web-mati.jpgthis is a pic of the burned region. notice the housing density, the narrow roads, and the particular road direction. West to east, the fire coming by gale winds from the west.
A look at the burned car pics, will show that they were
parallel parked on both sides of the streets with few space left for a single lane, much less 2 lane traffic.
https://img.aspr.gr/images/2018/07/24/web-mati-region.jpgand this is a wider caption. with green line I marked last years wildfire.
It pays to get lessons from past events.
the state failed too.
By grave coincidence, few days ago, on the weather prediction page of the state Meteorological service, a model of wildfire progression was posted
for a similar region. Seems no one payed attention.- The fire rampaged so fast through the housed area that people run for their lives,
with no plan and to no particular direction, other than the sea. But a group of 26 run for a field, only to find it surrounded by trees and the only open side was a cliff hanging over the sea. they were found burned huddled together.
- things remained crazy and people were evacuate in every possible way and given refuge or hospitalized to whatever place was available. I happened to hear an official shy away from a question whether there were
lists made of what camp hosted who. there haven't. People have resorted to the help of the media and internet to locate their relatives.
- what that particular fire was, is a
firestorm. A rare event that cost the lives of 19 US firemen in 2013.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm.The wind was gusting at 66 miles per hour, it jumped from tree top to tree top, and the fire traveled at the speed of a car. it was going
so fast that trees were burned form one side only.- remarkably houses made of brick and concrete (like the tall one on the pics) remained unscathed while the fire went around them.
A specialist said that people would better seek refuge in them, but this is counter intuitive, isn't it?